Musings of a fantasy author in a wibbly wobbly world.

The internet is rife with allegations, claims and counter claims about many individuals who write about FOSS and GNU/Linux.

Putting those aside though, the most rewarding part of entering the Linux/FOSS world are the friendships I’ve made over the years (as well as the great computing experience I now have)

There can be no doubt that many people will know the name Dr Schestowitz and whether you agree with his views or not, its fair to say that many people have strong opinions on his writing.

Getting involved with the TechBytes project and Dr Schestowitz was one of the best decisions I’ve made and I’ve had a better insight than most since I have not only met Roy in person as a guest at my home, but also every week I record with him on the TechBytes show.

I am repeatedly made aware that many people have claims/questions to Roy, but I’m not here to defend his view and I’m sure Roy wouldn’t want me to. What I can try to do is cut out all of the FUD and misinterpretation/false claims by interviewing Roy and putting questions from users directly to him.

I extend the offer to anyone, if you don’t want to post the questions here, then please feel free to email or use any of my contact points. I will let this offer run for about 2 weeks before putting them to him on an audiocast which will hopefully be hosted at a neutral venue.

I sincerely hope you will take up the opportunity.

Goblin

If you are new to this blog (or have not yet read it) please take time to view the OpenBytes statement, here.

2 thoughts on “Interview with Dr Roy Schestowitz of TechRights”

Tim, you are one of the biggest (in terms of both physical size and status) FOSS bigots around. The idea that an interview with Roy conducted by you could even in the smallest way be credible is so ridiculous that I thought maybe you posted an April Fool’s joke 17 days late. Yikes.

No doubt any uncomfortable questions that don’t give the appropriate results will hit the circular file. As I’ve said before, FOSS advocates put advocacy before truth. For you to do otherwise is damaging to your own cause. You just can’t have that. But it looks like your ultra-popular blog lacks comments on this article, so I’ll throw you a few softballs:

Roy tells us, “Users of Microsoft Office 2010 Hate It, OpenOffice.org is Loved.” Loved? Based on what were only 5 reviews posted to Amazon’s website? Is this the kind of quality investigation that Techrights is proud of? He didn’t even mention how many people voted or compare reviews from any other place. He also ignored anyone who rated Microsoft Office 4 or 5 stars.

This story is based around a reader (Who? We don’t know) that claims one of his friends (Who’s this guy or girl) posted a vague insult about Facebook and it was somehow deleted (which could never happen by accident). His friend said, “Huh”, and one of his friends said, “Oh yeah”, and then another friend had some other problems with them and they were like, “Yes.” Then he deleted his account or it was defeated for him? It’s hard to tell who deleted who because there were some deletions on Facebook because people were deleted.

Oh my God Jesus Christ in heaven!!!! Seriously. Find me anyone…. ANYONE who for the last 25 years worked for any news publication but it print, TV, or radio. Find me anyone who reads the story Roy published and ask them, “Would this kind of poorly written crap make it past the editor in your newsroom?”

Need more? Bottom line: Roy is a partisan bigot who wants to advance software freedom (as defined by RMS) above all. He spends an inordinate amount of time writing articles filled with self references and poorly researched sources. He doesn’t even read some of those articles he links to in full, just lifts the parts that make the indented target look bad. Add to that the insults and mockery in his articles that he says, “just use humor to make it more interesting”. No surprise he’s a fan of yours, Tim. For giggles, ask Roy if he considers himself a reputable source of news.

Then come to FOSS bigot. So I only champion only FOSS do I? I don’t know how you expect to get away with that fib because only a few articles ago I wrote about being a very happy Sony customer and making purchases from PSN. My reviews I conduct always state my need for proprietary drivers and Ive always said I champion good software (and I do, both proprietary and FOSS)

Moving on (since anyone can look back on my posts) the rest of your comment seems to be issues aimed towards Roy. Thats fine but I wish you have made the questions more direct so that I can put them to him without being accused by you of changing them. No matter, theres stuff I can gleam from them.

You don’t think I will be impartial? Well I will be asking questions as they are put to me (providing they have no vulgarity) if I am reading what people have written then I can hardly be accused of being uneven.

“As I’ve said before, FOSS advocates put advocacy before truth. For you to do otherwise is damaging to your own cause.”

My cause? I don’t have one. If I discovered tomorrow that a better proprietary alternative could replace a FOSS package I was using (or vice-versa) then I would happily say so. I would though love to hear what part of my FOSS advocacy you find dishonest. – Thats the whole point of a comments section, the idea is, if you find something Ive written dishonest or disagree, then please tell me and tell me why. Thats a debate.

I’ll end on this:

“Oh my God Jesus Christ in heaven!!!! Seriously. Find me anyone…. ANYONE who for the last 25 years worked for any news publication but it print, TV, or radio. Find me anyone who reads the story Roy published and ask them, “Would this kind of poorly written crap make it past the editor in your newsroom?””

Well, Linux Format wanted to speak with him further (so your implication about his posting doesn’t really hold true). Infact Linux Format put his picture on the front cover of their off the shelf magazine and had a two page interview with him. I’d say thats one. I think though its very easy for you to make implication from a couple of lines you post here.